LETTER VI.

_From the same to the same._

Since my last, I have had some conversation with Mr. Malcolm Maclairn, which, as it interested me, will make the subject of my present lucubrations. He returned home last night from an excursion which almost immediately followed my arrival here. I met him this morning in the garden, and he joined me. After civilly apologizing for an absence from home so soon after I was his mother’s guest, he said, his father had not been for many years in a state of health which admitted of any interruption by business. “But,” added he, with seriousness, “with what satisfaction do I now devote my time to his ease and comfort, when I compare his present condition with the sufferings of his mind that I have witnessed! This morning he was not only curious to learn the success of my little journey, but conversed with me on the subject of it with precision and interest. In time his long habits of seclusion and indolence will yield to the natural energy of his character, and the activity of his mind. I have cherished this hope, Miss Cowley, from the hour I was capable of reflecting on the nature and operations of my father’s malady. I never could believe he was what he was called, nor that his case was incurable lunacy. The event has justified my opinion. After many years of suffering under the most afflicting hypochondriacal attacks, he was suddenly seized by a violent fever, which for many days baffled medicine, and repressed every hope; the crisis was favourable. We were prepared to expect not only extreme weakness in his bodily powers, but also that debility of mind which inseparably belongs to a state of nearly renovated existence. He remained for a time a mere infant; but we perceived that with his increasing strength, his mind was clear from those gloomy images which had so long obscured it. He continued to gain strength; but unfortunately his memory, too faithful for his advantage, represented the scenes which had passed. He became painfully susceptible to a sense of humiliation the most unfriendly to his perfect recovery. No arguments could prevail on him to appear, even before the servants of the family, for a considerable time, lest he should terrify them; and his persuasion was so strong that he was disqualified to appear in society, that my dear mother ceased to importune him on the subject. Unsupported, and I may add, friendless as we are on the side of connections, no efforts were made to combat opinions which were more the result of extreme delicacy and habitual indulgence, than of a still disturbed imagination. I was convinced that my father wanted only a stimulus sufficiently powerful to rouse his mind, and to recover his native powers of acting. About this time, we received Mr. Flamall’s letters, with his plan of your becoming an inmate at the hall. My father was extremely averse to the proposal. He affectingly drew a picture of himself, and with tears appealed to his wife to determine whether he was a fit object for the observation of a girl who had no acquaintance with misery, and who would shun him as an object of dread and disgust, or laugh at his eccentricities. Miss Flint’s wishes were answered with firmness. ‘He should quit Tarefield.’ I had arguments more potent.—Let it suffice for the present,” continued Malcolm with emotion, “that _I know Mr. Flamall_; and that my father knows him to be a villain. I urged, and seriously urged, that by his rejection of the proposal Flamall had made, you might fall into less honourable hands; that he might, by an apparent acquiescence circumvent designs, which, as originating in a mind devoid of every principle, must be liable to suspicion. ‘You may not,’ added I, ‘be able altogether to redress the grievances which this young lady will have to endure under the controul of such a guardian; but under your protection she will be secure. Convince Miss Flint, and let Mr. Flamall understand, that you are no longer the ‘idiot,’ ‘the lunatic,’ they have proclaimed. At no period of his life was Sir Murdock Maclairn better qualified to become the defender of innocence. My arguments prevailed, and his journey to London to receive you, was determined on. My poor mother’s spirits sunk into terror. She resolved to attend Sir Murdock, and urged with many tears, the danger of his going by himself; but I was resolute. It was indispensibly requisite to renew in my father’s mind a confidence in his own strength, and to permit him experimentally to feel that he was a rational being, and fully competent to the care of himself and of you. He departed alone; and with a solicitude and terror which I will not attempt to describe. I followed his carriage. I had the comfort of finding on the road, that although the singularity of his manners excited curiosity, no one called in question his faculties of action, or suspected he had been deranged. I lodged at the same coffee-house in which he did, and slept in the next room to him. I followed his footsteps, and watched his return from Counsellor Steadman’s by means of a young man who was in his office. From this gentleman I also learned, Madam, some particulars relative to your situation at Mr. Hardcastle’s, and, with this information to appreciate justly your character, and that of the friends from whom you were to be separated. I reached the hall not more than two hours before your arrival, with the unpleasant conviction on my spirits, that you would experience under its roof many privations of your accustomed enjoyments. But I also knew, that nothing would be omitted on my mother’s part to render your banishment from your friends as easy and as secure as possible.—This mother,” continued Malcolm, “you must love; for she merits your esteem, and you are just. No language I can employ can describe her conduct as a wife or a mother. Judge then of her gratitude to you, for the humane and delicate attention you give to a husband, for whose sake and for whose comfort she has lived! You will no longer be surprised, my dear Madam, by the singularities of Sir Murdock, or at the retirement in which we live.—Observe those grated windows,” continued Malcolm, directing my notice to two in the attics, “in that apartment did my mother, like an angel of peace administer every tender, soothing balm to the desponding and disturbed imagination of her beloved, idolized husband! There it was, Madam, that I perceived from time to time the emanations of a mind which neither sickness nor sorrow could entirely extinguish. There it was, that I saw the spirit of a Maclairn struggling with affliction, and nobly sustaining its claims to the meed of virtue!”—He spoke with an animation which proved his affinity to his father.—“Need I,” pursued he, “recommend to Miss Cowley the continuance of those acts of kindness which have already produced the most flattering hopes to my dejected mother’s spirits. She tells me Sir Murdock delights in your society, and that he talks of you as a blessing sent to comfort her, and to heal him.” “God Almighty grant it may prove so!” said I, with fervour. “To be an agent in such a work would make a prison pleasant to me! But I find nothing at Tarefield,” added I, “to put my philosophy to the trial. I am perfectly contented in my banishment, except on one point; and I bespeak your good offices, Mr. Maclairn, to remedy this grievance. Contrive to conquer Miss Flint’s dread of my being an improper associate for her niece. From the precautions that are used, I should have thought those grated windows to have been poor Miss Howard’s boundaries.”—“She is another of my dear mother’s cares,” replied Malcolm with eagerness——“But see, Lady Maclairn approaches.” He bowed and turned towards the gate, whilst I quickened my steps to meet her Ladyship. “I come a petitioner,” said she with cheerfulness; “my husband wants to see you, and to have your recommendation of another book. I dread lest he should become too importunate; but only give me a hint, and I will prevent his intruding.” “Let me at once,” answered I, taking her hand, “tell you, in unequivocal language, that my enjoyments at Tarefield are so dependent on Sir Murdock, that _I_ shall have no spirits, but in proportion as I find myself useful to the return of _his_. From the first day we met, I promised that we should be mutually useful to each other. He shall teach me wisdom, and in requital I will endeavour to cure him of his indolence.” “God will reward you!” said her Ladyship, with emotion.—“The endeavour alone,” answered I, “will be a recompence; yet I am on the point of shewing you I can be selfish. I entreat you to assure Miss Flint that I am a very harmless young woman, and that she may with safety permit her niece to be familiar with me.”—“Would to Heaven,” said she, “it was in my power, Miss Cowley, not only to oblige you in this request, but also to convince you of my own opinions, as they relate to this amiable girl! But I can only deplore her aunt’s harshness of temper. I have neither the authority nor the influence necessary to remedy the evil. Lucretia must be left to the bitter experience which will result from her temper; and Miss Howard must be satisfied with knowing, that she is not the only one under this roof who suffers from its caprices. I am this poor girl’s friend, but I cannot lessen the oppression under which she lives, although I abhor it.” The Baronet appeared, and I thought his wife was not displeased by the relief his presence brought her. He gladly accepted my invitation to breakfast, and it was no sooner finished than he became so engaged with a book as to resemble a statue.

You say you do not yet know where to find me, should you be favoured with the gift of the renowned _Puss and her Boots_, and take it into your head to _step_ from Heathcot to Tarefield. Conceiving that, in the fancy of the moment, your imagination had conquered the difficulty of the staircases and thresholds, I will in my turn, fancy you are now in my _domicile_. My apartment forms the south wing of this irregular building, in which are two specious parlours, which command the east and south, by which means I have the avenue and the garden for my solace. But on discovering that Lady Maclairn had, from indulgence, a more peculiar privilege in the appropriation of these rooms to her own use, I have insisted on their being regarded as _hers_; and I have erected my throne of independence on the second floor, where the rooms are correspondent, only divided into three. It is in the south room you must look for your Rachel Cowley: but you may, if it please you, imagine you are still at home; for all in this _sanctum sanctorum_ is _Heathcot_. My work-table, the drawings we did together, Horace’s biographical chart—_all_ present to my mind those

“Friends of reason, and my guides of youth, Whose language breath’d the eloquence of truth; Whose life beyond preceptive wisdom taught, The wise in conduct, and the pure in thought.”

To gratify Sir Murdock, who by no means relished my preference of the second floor for my domain, I have placed my books and the piano-forte in one of the parlours, which has wonderfully domesticated us to that room. He is too well bred to intrude on my private hours; but he often induces me to shorten them, for there is a pleasure which belongs to sympathy; and when I see the poor baronet’s eyes brighten at my approach, I feel the gaiety which I often assume, settling into contentment. Have I said enough to satisfy your curiosity? Will it not be my own fault if I am dissatisfied with a prison regulated by order and neatness, and inhabited by people who wish to make it pleasant? I promise you, Lucy, that I will be all you wish me to be; but I must have intelligence of our dear wanderer. Neither Tarefield-hall, nor _Heathcot_ itself, would content me, without this indulgence; and, to say the truth, I would rather be the “Wet sea-boy” in Lord William’s yacht, “even when the visitation of the winds takes the billows by the top,” than dwell in a terrestrial paradise. But this is the romance of a girl! and as Solomon, from the next room, is glaring his large eyes on me, I will profit from the admonition they give me, and close this letter and my own eyes for the night. Heaven will, in its mercy, receive the petition I offer for all that is dear to Rachel Cowley, for in that confidence do I live.

P. S. Mrs. Allen bids me tell you that she finds Tarefield has a worse report than it deserves. It is haunted only by _one_ unquiet spirit, and that may be said of nine hundred and ninety-nine houses out of a thousand. She has, by her usual address, found the means of quieting this nuisance as it approaches her; for Miss Flint affects to have a great veneration for Mrs. Allen’s judgment, particularly in physic, in which she is or seems to be an adept. I heartily wish she may be converted to Mrs. Allen’s creed, of being “good to all,” it would do more for her weak _nerves_—could you but see this woman!—than a course of valerian and bark.